Although there are a few small things that I don't care for, "Apollo 13" remains a wonderfully acted, superbly tense picture that contains excellent performances. During the early portion of the film, there are moments that I felt are slightly slow. I do enjoy some of the scenes that have to do with NASA and having to do with the process of being about to go into space, but I suppose I was just wanting to go into space as soon as possible. Luckily, the ground characters (especially the outstanding Ed Harris) such as the NASA crew and Lovell's family(I went to high school with the actress who played the daughter) are all performed by an excellent crew of actors and actresses. Once the film finally moves into space though, director Ron Howard succeeds in every aspect, from storytelling to the attention to detail in the sets. The amount of tension is increased at every moment.

Everyone probably knows the story by now: 3 astronauts, Jim Lovell, Fred Haise and Jack Swigert(Tom Hanks, Bill Paxton, Kevin Bacon) have an oxygen tank explode in the middle of their mission to the moon ("Houston, we have a problem."). They face almost a constant string of obstacles, from freezing to death in space to their remaining oxygen levels running dangerously low. The dialogue between the characters as things begin failing feels as if it's been kept realistic, and that only adds to how engaging and riveting the scenes are once the movie has moved into space. Howard also talks about this in his commentary, where he talks about the fact that the audience may not know what the technical language means, but with the performance, we know that it's important and feel that each step is critical.

And of course, what Ron Howard movie would be complete without a performance from his brother Clint, who plays a NASA control room operator. Seriously though, Howard did an incredible job re-creating the events of "Apollo 13" and he had a crew of actors who provided performances that were nothing short of outstanding.